Marcus Peter Francis du Sautoy (born 26 August 1965) is a British mathematician, author, and broadcaster. He holds the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of New College, Oxford. Du Sautoy is widely recognized for his work in popularizing mathematics through books, television, and radio, and for his investigations into the intersection of mathematics, creativity, and artificial intelligence (AI).
His academic research focuses on group theory and number theory, using classical tools from number theory to explore the mathematics of symmetry. He has published numerous academic articles and has been a prominent voice in public debates about science and mathematics.
Early Life and Education
Du Sautoy was born in London to Bernard du Sautoy, who worked in the computer industry, and Jennifer du Sautoy, a former Foreign Office employee. He grew up in Henley-on-Thames. His grandfather, Peter du Sautoy, was chairman of the publisher Faber and Faber and managed the estates of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett.
He attended Gillotts Comprehensive School and King James's Sixth Form College (now Henley College). He studied mathematics at Wadham College, Oxford, where he earned a first-class honours degree. In 1991, he completed his doctorate on discrete groups, analytic groups, and Poincaré series, supervised by Dan Segal.
Career and Research
Du Sautoy's academic work has centered on group theory and number theory, with a particular interest in the mathematics of symmetry. He was a fellow of All Souls College and Wadham College, Oxford, and served as president of the Mathematical Association. He also held roles as an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) senior media fellow and a Royal Society University Research Fellow. In 1996, he was awarded the title of Professor of Mathematics.
Beyond academia, du Sautoy has been a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's In Our Time and has written for The Times and The Guardian. He co-directs PRiSM, the Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music at the Royal Northern College of Music, which he co-founded with composer Emily Howard. In a 2006 article in Seed magazine, he discussed the Hilbert-Pólya conjecture, linking quantum physics to the Riemann hypothesis.
Books and Writing
Du Sautoy has authored several popular mathematics and science books, including The Music of the Primes, Finding Moonshine, Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature, The Num8er My5teries, What We Cannot Know, and The Great Unknown. His recent work, The Creativity Code, explores how machine learning and generative AI are learning to write, paint, and think, examining the potential for AI to be creative. Other titles include Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut, Around the World in 80 Games, and Blueprints: How mathematics shapes creativity.
Television and Media
Du Sautoy has presented numerous television programmes, including the BBC Four series Mind Games and The Story of Maths. He co-hosted School of Hard Sums with Dara Ó Briain, where mathematical problems were tackled using rigorous and experimental methods. In 2006, he delivered the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures under the title The Num8er My5teries, only the third time mathematics had been the subject. His other television work includes documentaries such as The Music of the Primes, The Code, and The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms. In 2012, he presented Horizon: The Hunt for AI, investigating the progress of deep learning and the quest to create thinking machines.
Awards and Honours
Du Sautoy received the Berwick Prize in 2001 from the London Mathematical Society for outstanding research. In 2009, he won the Michael Faraday Prize from the Royal Society for excellence in communicating science. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours for services to science. He has also been named one of the UK's leading scientists by The Independent on Sunday.